Wesley Baldwin, cello

Wesley Baldwin

Chair of Strings, Wintergreen Summer Music Academy

Cellist Wesley Baldwin performs throughout the United States and Europe as soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist he has appeared with the Laredo Philharmonic, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Symphony of the Mountains, and the Aberdeen, Bemidji, Bryan, Chattanooga, Florence, Hot Springs, Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Manchester, New River Valley, Salisbury, Wintergreen, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras, among others. His passionate and charismatic performances have garnered much critical acclaim.

Wesley was the founder of the Plymouth String Quartet, with whom he was a top prize-winner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition. Other performing honors Baldwin has received include the Prix Mercure, Homer Ulrich Awards, and a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Performing Artist Fellowship. He is currently the cellist of the Edison Piano Trio.

As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world’s great conductors and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, and Brazil. His orchestral colleagues there selected him as the recipient of the New World Symphony’s Community Board Award for artistic integrity and leadership.

Dr. Baldwin has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Hot Springs, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Sub-tropics Music Festivals, and internationally in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica.

In the summer he performs and teaches at the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, the ARIA International Academy, and at the Wintergreen Festival, where he serves on the faculty of the Wintergreen Academy and is principal cellist of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra.

A passionate teacher, Dr. Baldwin serves as Professor of Cello at the University of Tennessee, where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise. His former students play and teach throughout the United States and abroad.

Wesley lives in Knoxville with his wife (soprano Melisa Barrick), and four great children.